To Wear The White Cloak: A Catherine LeVendeur Mystery (25 page)

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Authors: Sharan Newman

BOOK: To Wear The White Cloak: A Catherine LeVendeur Mystery
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“No, Catherine,” she said gently. “This isn’t something for a Christian woman to touch. Even we would not open it without covering our hands first.”
The box was open now. Abraham let out a long sigh of pleasure.
“The leather is still soft,” he said as he lifted the object in his arms. “You’ve kept it well.”
“Will someone tell me what this thing is?” Edgar asked with impatience.
For answer Abraham gently unwrapped the leather casing to reveal a scroll rolled onto two bobbins topped with gold finials. He laid his gloved hands on the cover but did not try to open it.
“It’s a Torah,” Joel told them. “Very old, from before the time of Saadia Gaon. It was brought to France by Isaac, the emissary of Charlemagne to Haroun el-Rashid, the ruler of Baghdad. On his way back, Isaac stopped in Jerusalem and was given this for the brethren of Ashkenaz. We thought it had been destroyed when the Edomites pillaged our homes in Rouen.”
“My father left it with Gervase, the Christian who adopted me,” Hubert explained. “He was a friend of my father’s and had promised to guard his possessions. I found it among his things when he died. Gervase had kept his oath and never opened the box. I didn’t know then what it was, but I brought it to Paris with me and showed it to my brother Eliazar. He thought it would be best kept hidden until a time of less uncertainty.”
Catherine craned her neck to see better. She wondered if any woman was allowed to touch the Torah. Perhaps it was something like the shrine of Saint Cuthbert in Durham, where the saint refused to allow even devout women near his tomb.
Edgar also stood back. “But Hubert, this is still a very unsettled time for Jews,” he said. “Why reveal it now?”
“Joel and I are taking it back to Aries with me,” Hubert said. “I realize now that all times are uncertain and, if this is to survive, I couldn’t leave it in a place where it might be found, stolen or, worse, burned. Now you see why I was always so fearful of fire in the counting room. The responsibility weighed on me even more as I began uncovering the mysteries of the words of the Holy One. I had thought about sending it back to Rouen, but not with the war in Normandy. We are going to give this to the community of scholars in Arles to keep in the synagogue. They will guard it safely in a vault of stone.”
Catherine hadn’t heard Solomon enter the room. When his arm went around her shoulders she turned to him and smiled.
“You don’t have to stand apart from it,” she told him. “It’s your holy book.”
“And yours,” he reminded her. “I’m not worthy to touch it. My sinful hands would turn black and shrivel to cinders.”
Catherine looked away. Solomon rarely voiced such deep belief. His pain at his own failings hurt her as much as his refusal to become Christian. She squeezed the hand resting on her shoulder.
Having assured himself that the scroll was still intact, Abraham took a length of silk from Rebecca and wrapped it carefully again before putting it into the leather bag.
“Do you understand now why I couldn’t send anyone to do this for me?” Hubert asked them. “Three hundred fifty years our family has been the guardians of the Torah.”
“I understand that you felt the obligation was yours alone,” Edgar admitted. “But you might have trusted us more.”
Hubert sank down onto the pillows.
“It wasn’t trust I lacked,” he explained. “I didn’t want the burden put on you.”
Catherine had been thinking.
“Father, you’re sure that you told no one that you had this book?” she asked. “Never?”
“Your mother knew,” Hubert said. “I felt I had to tell her, but she was so horrified, I’m sure she told no one.”
“I wonder,” Catherine said. “What if she had hinted something, say to her brother, Roger? And what if he had long ago confided it to his comrade in arms.”
“Jehan!” Edgar exclaimed.
“Jehan,” Hubert echoed. “But he’s long gone to fight Saracens.”
“Not yet. He’s in Paris now,” Catherine said. “And I fear he’s seeking evidence of something in our house that will finally give him the chance to destroy us all. This may be it.”
That same afternoon, at a tavern near Montmartre.
 
 
Israel, Torah and God are one.
 
—The Zohar
Vol III, 4b
 
 
J
ehan was not as angry with his failure as Lambert had feared.
“You couldn’t have known how far their tendrils reach,” he said, mixing beer into his soup to cool it. “But now you must realize how difficult it will be to bring these monsters to justice.”
“If we could only find a way to have someone in authority discover Lord Osto’s knife in their house.” Lambert munched sadly on a gristly sausage.
“That’s the difficulty with these people,” Jehan agreed. “I’ve thought so many times that I had them, but they slip out of the noose like phantoms.”
He took a long gulp of beer. “It’s up to us. If we could only get into the counting room. I’m certain it holds the answer.”
“That must be the most secure room in the house,” Lambert said. “Lord Osto used his to hold valuables for half the village, and it was always locked and barred. Only he and his wife had the keys.”
Jehan waved away that problem.
“Locks are easily picked, if one has time enough and the trick of it,” Jehan confided. “It’s getting into the house and past the spells that guard the treasure that can be troublesome.”
Lambert was confused. “What sorcery could they have that would defeat men of true faith? Our Lady and Saint Omer shield me, I know.”
Jehan’s lined face creased in a grin.
“The very thing!” he exclaimed. “I’ve waited long for a man of your conviction to aid me in my efforts. With certainty like yours, none of their enchantments can touch you.”
“But your faith must be at least as strong as mine,” Lambert said. “You’ve even taken the cross.”
“Of course,” Jehan replied smoothly. “But my face is well-known to them. When I appear they are instantly on guard. However, if you could overcome your repugnance at being in a house where demons lurk and are even carried about like pets, you could be the one to help me obliterate them once and for always.”
“Tell me what to do,” Lambert said. “I promise not to fail you.”
His fervor brought Jehan close to tears. It had been so long since he had a companion to share the burden. Excitedly, he sketched out the plan.
 
By that afternoon all Catherine wanted to do was fall facedown onto her bed and cry herself to sleep. But Samonie had been waiting for them to return so that she could go get the pork pies from the baker for their dinner. James and Edana were more energetic than usual, racing around the house and tripping in the rushes. Edgar had work to do making arrangements if they were to have anything to trade at the Lendit, so Catherine was, by elimination, the nursemaid.
The day was threatening rain but the ground in the back garden was still dry, and so she took her lively children out. She started them rolling a ball back and forth, but they wanted her to join the game. Margaret came out to help, but she was as tired as Catherine.
“Thank you for telling me why you went out so hurriedly,” she told Catherine as she kicked the ball toward James. “I hate it when you don’t trust me with your secrets.”
“I always trust you,
ma douz,
” Catherine said as she lifted Edana to keep her from being knocked over. “But not all secrets are mine to share. Anyway, the scroll is out of our hands now. If it had been found here, we would have had no explanation, since my father didn’t trust me with all his secrets, either. It was wrong of him. I can’t protect him, or us, if I don’t know where a threat might come from.”
They continued a while with the game. James preferred to run after the ball and carry it back so that he could aim it directly at them from close proximity. Catherine threw it nearly to the creek so that
he would be some time getting it. While they waited, she sat with Edana in her lap.
“Solomon didn’t come back with you,” Margaret commented.
“I’m sure he will, soon,” Catherine said. “I suppose he has much to discuss with my father.”
The sadness in her voice told Margaret not to venture further. Faith, instead of being a bulwark, had become a fence keeping Hubert and Solomon from them. It made Margaret angry. Why didn’t God simply make the Truth so manifest that no one could doubt it? Then there would be no more Jews or pagans or Saracens. Of course, she thought as she remembered her family in Scotland, Christians could always find reasons to fight each other. On the whole, it all seemed very bad organization on the part of Heaven. She supposed that was part of being Ineffable.
“Don’t sigh so, dear.” Catherine smiled at her. “It will be all right soon. Father will go back to Arles. Solomon will stay with us again, until he has to go to trade for more goods. But he’ll come back. He always does.”
Samonie returned with the dinner, and Catherine gratefully took everyone in to eat. This was a night when she intended to be in bed long before Compline rang.
Edgar had been busy with Martin, replacing the false bottom in the chest and this time fastening it down tightly.
“You should put something else in it,” Martin suggested.
“Why?” Edgar asked, bemused. Martin hardly ever gave an opinion about anything except the distressing number of visitors they received.
“Because if I were a thief and found a box with a hiding place and nothing in it, I’d be suspicious,” Martin explained. “I’d think the treasure was someplace else and go on hunting.”
“That’s excellent logic,” Edgar said. “We need to put something in that has value but that we can prove was come by honestly. Can you think of anything?”
Martin was surprised to be asked. He rubbed his chin as he thought.
“What about the boxes of amber that Master Solomon brought back from Russia?” he suggested.
“Yes, that will do well,” Edgar agreed. “We won’t be needing them until the autumn, when the English and Irish traders come. Very good, Martin.”
The boy beamed. Edgar watched him as he deftly handled the hammer and nails, whistling a tavern song between his teeth.
“Martin,” he asked abruptly. “How old are you now?”
“I’ll be fifteen on Michaelmas,” the boy answered.
“That old! I didn’t realize how you’d grown while we were away.” Edgar rubbed his chin, noting that he needed to visit the barber soon. “Now that your sister is married and your little brother a stableboy at Vielleteneuse, have you thought what you want to do? I could buy an apprenticeship for you with the carpenters, if you like.”
Martin dropped the hammer.
“No, Master Edgar, I don’t!” he said with passion. “I want to stay here and be appentice to you and Master Solomon.”
“Us?” Edgar was taken aback. “Doing what?”
“Whatever you need,” Martin said. “Carry messages, help organize the goods, be your squire when you go on journeys. I want to see the world outside of France. I want to go to Spain and England and even Constantinople. I know I could be useful. Just give me a chance!”
The intensity of the boy’s plea surprised Edgar. Martin had seemed to him to be a rather doltish boy, a bit sullen even. Now his whole face was alight with desire and intelligence. Edgar unexpectedly found himself wondering who Martin’s father was. He knew that Samonie had been a maid of all work in Troyes, and part of that work had been to accommodate the men of the castle as well as visitors. It was possible that she didn’t even know herself who had planted Martin in her.
“That is something I’ll have to consider and discuss with Solomon,” he said. “I make no promises.”
“But you will think about it?” Martin begged.
Edgar nodded. Martin could hardly contain his excitement as he gathered up the tools and went to tell his mother.
 
Although he was as tired as everyone else, Edgar stayed up until past sundown, checking all the bars on the doors and the shutters on the
ground-floor windows. He strolled down to the garden to be sure the guards were staying watchful. Then he checked the locks again.
He’d passed through exaustion into a kind of otherworldly focus, where everything he looked at seemed somehow clearer and yet not quite real. He laughed at himself. Without trying, he had reached the level that others attained only through days of fasting and deprivation.
Once he would have worked off his tension by picking up a piece of wood and whittling at it until a shape appeared or he lost interest. Now he would have to prepare his vises and get someone to help him set them up before he could even begin.
Edgar stared down at his left wrist. In his present state he almost believed that he saw his hand there, whole again. He blinked, and the image vanished. They had told him that the hand had been buried in a box by the church at Hexham where the accident had occurred. He never could reconcile the knowledge that while he still lived, breathed and aged, a part of himself had already rotted and was part of the earth.
Perhaps, he thought in a flash of understanding, that was how his grief at the loss of baby Heloisa differed from Catherine’s.
He shivered, although the night was mild. The humors of the air were causing him to be fanciful.
Later, he slid into bed, trying not to wake Catherine. She lay curled up facing the wall, one hand beneath her cheek, one of her long braids coming undone. Edgar was tempted to unravel it the rest of the way, as he had once, years ago when he first realized that he loved her.
But his tiredness finally overcame him, and he contented himself with curling against her, his chin resting on the top of her sleeping cap. After all, there was always the morning.
 
Solomon was trying to adjust to the change in his practical uncle, Hubert. It seemed that, when he had sloughed off the pretense of being a Christian, another man had emerged.
Rebecca had just finished lighting the Sabbath candles. Abraham had gone to the synagogue. Hubert had wanted to go with him, but
the others had convinced him that he shouldn’t take the risk of being recognized. Solomon had declined to go.
“There will be plenty without me,” he said. “Paris always has enough for a
minyan
. I’ll stay with Uncle Hu … uh … Chaim.”
Abraham gave him a look of disgust but at a glance from Rebecca didn’t pursue the question.
After he had gone, Hubert smiled at Solomon.
“It’s good to be here,” he said. “Without having to pretend. You see before you a man made whole.”
Solomon didn’t doubt it. In the warm glow of the Sabbath candles, Hubert’s face was beatific.
“You didn’t mind then,” he asked. “Returning to
cheder
at your age?”
Hubert laughed. “It felt strange at first, to be sitting with the young boys. But I already knew my
aleph-bet,
and the rest came quickly. Now the men I study with are only a third my age. They’re kind to me and welcome me like a traveler from a distant land who has sought sanctuary.”
“As you are, Chaim,” Rebecca said.
Solomon thought he understood. Part of him was envious. He longed for the freedom to do as he liked. He had barely begun learning the secrets of the Talmud when he went to work, picking up the art of trading from his uncles. He had passed his whole life traveling, seeking out rare goods, bargaining to get the best price without causing resentment in the seller.
He had seen so much that made no sense to him. There were so many questions that ate at him. Like Margaret, he was perplexed by the randomness of fate. If the Holy One had left the answers for man to find, they had to be in His books. Solomon was often tempted to give up his life in France and devote the rest of his days to searching the texts until he found an explanation that satisfied him. Then he thought of those he would be leaving behind and knew he couldn’t abandon them.
“But, Uncle,” he said, “didn’t you realize that your story of going on pilgrimage would be doubted when you spent all the time before
you left here, instead of with the priests? You’ve left Catherine and Edgar with a host of problems.”

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